Free Slab Serif Font History | Premium Fonts

Slab serif lettering and typefaces appeared rapidly in the early nineteenth century having little in common with previous letterforms.

Slab serif font history. Deu promoted to code. Clarendon will be the title of the slab serif typeface which was introduced in 1845 by thorowgood and co. Slab serif typefaces sometimes referred to as egyptians can evoke a wide range of feelingsslabs in the clarendon style can bring to mind the old west while other slabs based on neo grotesque and geometric models can take on a more contemporary feel. Regardless the slab serif became quite popular first in england where it was the defacto type choice in advertising.

The slab serif style with its eye catching features is a common choice of poster designers. Some typography sources refer to sans serif typefaces as grotesque in german grotesk code. Looking for slab serif fonts. Poster size types began to be developed that were not merely magnified forms of book type but very.

When designers use serif fonts. Or thorowgood and besley of london a letter foundry typically known as the fann avenue foundry. Every font is free to download. Egyptian slate the egyptian slate typeface family is a recent addition to the slate family both designed by rod mcdonald.

Here is a survey of seven of the most useful and well designed slab serifs. Slab serif appeared in the early 1800s. Think of slabs as a font family that has subsets of unique styles that together make up the entirety of this typeface. The bold weighted letterforms could be seen on every kind of pamphlet poster and billboardso much so that when designers want to make a poster that looks vintage today they often choose a big slab serif.

The slab serif or egyptian is also home to further subsets of typeface styles like the fat faces which are fundamentally didones or moderns on steroids. Whereas slab serif is the name of the general category there are subgroupings within this typeface that draw attention to the variety and individuality of the slab fonts. As the printing of advertising material began to expand in the early nineteenth century new and notionally more attention grabbing letterforms became popular. Take a modern style typeface give its thicker strokes even more weight triangulate some of those serifs and you have a fat face.

Professional designers know the importance of typography. The original clarendon design is credited to robert besley a lover inside the foundry and was initially engraved by punchcutter benjamin. The style is characterized by thick block like serifs often as wide as the vertical lines. A typeface or font family making use of serifs is called a serif typeface or serifed typeface and a typeface that does not include them is a sans serif one.

Traditionally slab serifs have been used for display text however some slab serifs can work well for setting body textthe amazon kindle.